Magid: Abductions by online predators rare

Last week, 19-year-old Alicia Kozakiewicz told the House Judiciary Committee about her horrific ordeal at the hands of a sadistic rapist she met in an Internet chat room.

The story, which was heavily reported on TV, radio and some newspapers, is indeed tragic. It happened six years ago when she was 13. According to some press accounts, she struck up an online friendship with what she thought was another young girl. Some reports say she was "abducted."

She was held against her will, but she was not abducted in the traditional sense of the word. I say this not to diminish the intensity of her tragic ordeal but to point out an important lesson in Internet safety.

Contrary to what some people might imply, most kids who become victims of online sex predators are not abducted. They are lured after being groomed by their predators. And, though any case is tragic, the fact is that such crimes are relatively rare considering the millions of children and teens that go online every day. Despite thousands of arrests of would-be predators caught up in sting operations, tragic cases like this don't appear to occur very often.

If you sense I'm being vague about numbers, it's because there aren't any. No reliable, recent studies document the number of child Internet sex crime victims. We do know that kids are far more likely to be bullied or harassed by peers than molested by predators, and we know that the vast majority of kids who are sexually molested know the perpetrator from the offline world.

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We also know from research by the Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC) at the University of New Hampshire that "the reality about Internet-initiated sex crimes is different, more complex and possibly less frightening than the publicity about them suggests."

According to CCRC, "research makes it clear that the stereotype of the online child molester who uses trickery and violence to assault children is inaccurate." The study reports that "In the great majority of cases, victims are aware that they are conversing online with adults. The offenders seldom pretend to be other teens." The study found that only 5 percent of online molesters deceived victims this way.

In Kozakiewicz's case, the offender was particularly vicious and evil, but even though the teen had no way of knowing she was dealing with a sadistic monster, earlier reports on the incident indicate she was persuaded to run away with him after talking with him hours a night when her parents thought she was in bed.

Her case points to lessons that both parents and teens should learn. Becoming a victim is not a result of being online; it's usually a result of engaging in risky online and offline behavior.

As Kozakiewicz's has pointed out, one obvious mistake was agreeing to get together with someone she met on the Internet. Another was engaging in extensive and intimate chat over a period of time. While not all intimate chat involves a predator, it is a favored tool of adults who prey on kids. They groom their victims over a period of time - sometimes months, through sympathy, flattery and "understanding."

Adult predators use their keyboards to gradually persuade their victims to enter into a relationship and by the time the youth and the adult meet up, the young person usually knows the approximate age of the adult. The notion of a child meeting up with a 40-year-old man who she thinks is a 13-year-old girl, though not impossible, is statistically unlikely.

Research helps isolate certain behaviors that lead to risk. A CCRC study found that youth who "talk online to unknown people about sex, along with youth who had multiple unknown people on their buddy lists, were more likely to be solicited or harassed."

The study also found a connection between a youth's own anti-social behavior and his or her chances of becoming a victim. "Youth who engage in online aggressive behavior by making rude or nasty comments or frequently embarrassing others are more than twice as likely to report online interpersonal victimization."

And despite all of the recent attention on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, the places where young people are most likely to get in trouble are through chat rooms and instant messaging sessions.